Plutonium injections and nuclear fallout appear in Gordon Dunning's files
By Eleanor Voss ·
Records from the Atomic Energy Commission detail the human cost of Operation Dominic and the 1974 probe into secret plutonium experiments.
People living downwind of atomic tests breathed in isotopes that altered their DNA and ended their lives prematurely. Others were injected with plutonium without their knowledge, their bodies turned into data points for the Atomic Energy Commission.
These are not mere casualties of physics, but the outcomes of policy decisions managed by men like Gordon Dunning. The file's catalogue entry records that Dunning, an official with the agency, produced a series of memorandums and correspondence concerning the implementation of atomic energy policies. While the entry notes that these files cover the "structure, functions, missions" of the agency, it also explicitly lists "controversies" as a primary subject.
In the sanitized language of archival descriptions, a "controversy" is often the only signpost for a human catastrophe. For Dunning, these controversies were tied to the physical reality of nuclear fallout and the execution of large-scale atmospheric tests.
Operation Dominic
The catalogue lists Operation Dominic among the specific topics in Dunning's correspondence. To the planners, Dominic was a series of high-altitude and surface tests designed to validate weapons systems. To those in the path of the plumes, it was an exposure event. The documents in Dunning's series track the agency's activity during this period, though the catalogue entry stops short of detailing the specific health outcomes of the populations affected.
This focus on the atmospheric was mirrored by a simultaneous interest in the subterranean. The record notes Dunning's involvement with Project Plowshare, a program that sought to use nuclear explosions for "peaceful" purposes. Related files from the Holmes and Narver Company, which contracted for the commission, detail the development of the infrastructure for "gas stimulation"—the process of using nuclear detonations to crack underground rock and release natural gas. The human stake here was the stability of the earth and the safety of the workers tasked with building the sites for these explosions.
Project Sunshine
If Project Plowshare was about moving the earth, Project Sunshine was about harvesting the dead. The agency's Central Subject Files list Project Sunshine as a key component of its biomedical activities.
While the catalogue description is brief, Project Sunshine is known in the public record as a clandestine effort to collect human tissue—often from deceased infants—to measure the levels of strontium-90 in the global environment. This biomedical research, as cited in the records, was not an isolated effort. The archival descriptions link it to a broader web of "biomedical activities at nuclear weapons tests" and research materials compiled by the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.
There is a stark contrast between these biomedical pursuits and the agency's official stance on safety. In the related reading files of Joseph A. Lenhard, the focus is on "effluent and other pollution control" and "compliance with environmental protection laws." The records suggest an agency operating in two parallel tracks: one that documented occupational health and safety for its employees, and another that treated the general public as a biological laboratory.
1974 Plutonium Probe
The most invasive of these policies is found in the agency's Central Subject Files, which record a "1974 investigation of plutonium injection experiments."
These were not accidental exposures. The records describe a program of intentional plutonium injections, where subjects were administered the radioactive element to study its movement through the human body and its eventual excretion. This was the ultimate expression of the "implementation of atomic energy policies" mentioned in Dunning's files—a policy where the state's need for data overrode the subject's right to informed consent.
By the time the 1974 investigation occurred, the commission had spent decades managing the fallout of its own ambition. The records of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, consisting of primary and secondary source materials from various federal agencies, suggest a systemic approach to human testing that spanned multiple laboratories and universities.
Throughout these archives, the terminology remains clinical. We see "effluent control," "gas stimulation," and "biomedical activities." But the presence of an investigation into plutonium injections and the existence of files on the "1950 fallout controversy" indicate that the agency was aware of the damage it had caused.
The catalogue entry for the Central Subject Files makes no mention of how many people were injected with plutonium, only that an investigation into the practice took place in 1974.